Before you choose your Halloween costume this year, you better insure it does not offend anyone.
Such was the case with an illegal alien costume, sold briefly at Target and other retailers – until some folks yelled loud enough for it to be pulled off the market.
The costume isn’t even that great. It features the traditional outer-space alien mask, an orange inmate-like jumpsuit stamped with “Illegal Alien” across the front, and one accessory: a hand-held “Green Card.”
But it pissed off a lot of people nonetheless.
The costume is “distasteful, mean-spirited, and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform,” according to an e-mail sent to Target on Friday from Angelica Salas, executive director for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, as quoted in a story at WTVR.com
Americans for Legal Immigration, or ALIPAC, fought back with a widely distributed news release of its own, encouraging people to buy the thing before it was pulled and boasting that the costume sold out at online retailers before it could be removed.
ALIPAC’s President, William Gheen listed one of the costumes on eBay, the release said, until it, too, was pulled “as they may be offensive to some members.”
Target says it listed the costume by mistake, WTVR reports.
Whatever the case may be, the whole brouhaha makes a sad statement for America: political correctness is now invading Halloween.
Now we just have to sit back and wait.
Wait for fanatical religious groups to cry out about devil and demon costumes and the Satanists to scream about folks who dress as angels.
We’ll also have to stop dressing up as serial killers, as that may make some folks upset, so just you forget about the plastic meat cleavers and hockey masks.
Don’t you dare don that infamous mask of Nixon or any other president, or any other public figure for that matter. You may offend the folks who voted for them.
Get rid of pirates, as they’ve been acting up lately. How dare we perpetuate their pillaging by donning a hook arm and skull bandanna.
Come to think of it, aren’t prostitute and hobo costumes offensive, as those folks may not have freely chosen that lifestyle but have been sucked into it by bad choices and worse luck.
Seems the only thing left to do is pull a sheet over your head and go as a ghost. Unless, of course, that may be offensive to folks who have a negative run-in with those feisty spirits.
While this is written with sarcasm, the whole costume controversy is a real issue that once again helps illustrate the sad state of American affairs.
Political correctness is taking over our lives.
But the saddest fact, by far, is that no one is getting rid of all the clown costumes.
[tnipoll]
What do you think?
Are the illegal alien costumes offensive – or humorous?
Is it an outrage they were even, briefly, for sale?
Should we be mindful of our Halloween costumes to make sure they don’t offend anyone?
